The convergence of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and semantic technologies is reshaping how digital systems model and reason about human behavior. Human Digital Twins (HDTs) offer dynamic user representations by integrating multimodal data from physiological, behavioral, and linguistic sources. However, most existing HDTs perform low-level data fusion, lacking the semantic consistency needed for coherent reasoning and personalization. This paper proposes a novel pipeline for constructing Personal Knowledge Graphs (PKGs), i.e. adaptive, formal representations of user knowledge, that combine the generative capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) with ontology-based validation. The pipeline includes triplet extraction from language data, semantic alignment through embeddings, and ontology-driven graph construction. A comparative analysis between ontology-free and ontology-guided PKG generation demonstrates that semantic grounding substantially reduces spurious relationships and improves reasoning accuracy, establishing ontological validation as essential for reliable knowledge extraction. By bridging symbolic and generative paradigms, the proposed approach advances knowledge-driven HDTs that are proactive, interpretable, and resilient.

Giving voice to digital twins: How LLMs build human knowledge graphs

Pruner A.;Atzori L.;Nitti M.
2026-01-01

Abstract

The convergence of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and semantic technologies is reshaping how digital systems model and reason about human behavior. Human Digital Twins (HDTs) offer dynamic user representations by integrating multimodal data from physiological, behavioral, and linguistic sources. However, most existing HDTs perform low-level data fusion, lacking the semantic consistency needed for coherent reasoning and personalization. This paper proposes a novel pipeline for constructing Personal Knowledge Graphs (PKGs), i.e. adaptive, formal representations of user knowledge, that combine the generative capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) with ontology-based validation. The pipeline includes triplet extraction from language data, semantic alignment through embeddings, and ontology-driven graph construction. A comparative analysis between ontology-free and ontology-guided PKG generation demonstrates that semantic grounding substantially reduces spurious relationships and improves reasoning accuracy, establishing ontological validation as essential for reliable knowledge extraction. By bridging symbolic and generative paradigms, the proposed approach advances knowledge-driven HDTs that are proactive, interpretable, and resilient.
2026
Human Digital Twins
Large language models
Ontology
Personal knowledge graph
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Giving+Voice+to+Digital+Twins_Iris.pdf

accesso aperto

Descrizione: Pre-print
Tipologia: versione pre-print
Dimensione 1.5 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.5 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
1-s2.0-S014036642600143X-main.pdf

Solo gestori archivio

Descrizione: VoR
Tipologia: versione editoriale (VoR)
Dimensione 1.78 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.78 MB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri   Richiedi una copia

I metadati presenti in IRIS UNICA sono rilasciati con licenza Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal, mentre i file delle pubblicazioni sono protetti da diritto d'autore, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11584/483025
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 0
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact